Happy Tree Friends
Rhode Montijo Kenn Navarro |creative_director = Dean MacDonald |voices = Kenn Navarro Nica Lorber Rhode Montijo (1999–2005) David Winn Dana Belben (1999–2005) Ellen Connell (2005–09) Lori Jee (2009–present) Warren Graff Aubrey Ankrum Liz Stuart Jeff Biancalana (2000–2005) Peter Herrmann Michael "Lippy" Lipman Mark Giambruno Francis Carr (2005-present) Renée T. MacDonald Ken Pontac |theme_music_composer = rj Eleven |country = United States |company = Mondo Media Fatkat (television) |distributor = Mondo Media |language = English |num_seasons = 4 |num_episodes = 133 |list_episodes = List of Happy Tree Friends episodes |producer = Liz Stuart |executive_producer = John Evershed |runtime = 1–5 minutes (Internet series) 7 minutes (TV series) |network = Mondo Media (internet) G4 |picture_format = Flash cartoon |first_aired = |last_aired = present |related = |website = https://mondomedia.com/channel/HappyTreeFriends }} Happy Tree Friends is an American adult animated video series disguised as a children's web show created by Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode Montijo and Kenn Navarro, and developed by Montijo, Navarro and Warren Graff for Mondo Media. The show has been cited as an example of achieving a cult following. The series is best known for its combination of cute cartoon anthropomorphic forest animals and extreme graphic violence. Each episode revolves around the characters enduring accidental or deliberately inflicted pain, mutilation and/or death to which at one point, there was a warning given to the site: "Cartoon Violence: Not recommended for small children or big babies". Characters Happy Tree Friends features a variety of characters, each with varying appearances and personalities. However, almost all share identical Pac-Man eyes, boot-shaped feet, buckteeth, and pink heart-shaped noses; characters include Cuddles, a yellow bunny, Giggles, a pink chipmunk, Toothy, a mauve-colored beaver, Lumpy, a blue moose, Petunia, a blue skunk, Handy, an orange beaver with amputated hands, Nutty, a green squirrel, Sniffles, a light blue anteater, Flaky, a red porcupine, Disco Bear, a gold-orange bear, Lifty & Shifty, 2 olive raccoons, Flippy, a green army veteran bear, et al. History 1999: Beginning While working on Mondo Media, Rhode Montijo drew on a piece of scrap paper a character who would later become Shifty. He then drew on a spreadsheet poster a yellow rabbit that bore some resemblance to Cuddles and wrote "Resistance is futile" underneath it. Rhode hung the drawing up in his workstation so other people could see his idea, and eventually the idea was pitched to and accepted by the Mondo Media executives. In 1999, Mondo gave Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode Montijo and Kenn Navarro a chance to do a short for them. They came up with a short named Banjo Frenzy, which featured a dinosaur (an earlier version of Lumpy) killing three woodland animals, a squirrel, a rabbit and a beaver (earlier versions of Giggles, Cuddles and Toothy) with a banjo. From there, Mondo gave them their own Internet series, which they named Happy Tree Friends. 2000-present: success After its internet debut in 1999, Happy Tree Friends became an unexpected success, getting over 15 million hits each month and screenings at film festivals. In some countries, the episodes can be seen on television. The series has been reformed into its own show, rather than as a part of a compilation as before. Encouraged by the show's success, its creators have released four DVDs (First Blood, Second Serving, Third Strike and Winter Break) containing the episodes shown on the website and others that have not been released. A collection consisting of the first three DVDs and five bonus episodes, Overkill, has also been released. Two episodes, "Stealing the Spotlight" and "Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya!", were originally only available in the Happy Tree Friends: Winter Break DVD, but are now on YouTube and the Happy Tree Friends website. Mondo Media CEO John Evershed attributes the success of the series to animator Kenn Navarro. "He had a clear vision for that show and he's just a brilliant animator. He has created something that is pretty universal. I envision kids watching Happy Tree Friends 20 or 30 years from now the same way that they watch Tom and Jerry now. So really it's Kenn Navarro." Television series The Happy Tree Friends television series was first shown at Comic-Con 2006 and some of the episodes were shown on the website a few weeks prior to the show's television premiere, September 25, 2006 at midnight on the G4 Videogame TV network as part of its late-night block, Barbed Wire Biscuit (renamed Midnight Spank) (Web episodes of Happy Tree Friends also aired on the network's animation anthology series Happy Tree Friends and Friends and G4's Late Night Peepshow). Each half-hour episode of the television series contains three seven-minute segments. 13 half-hour episodes were made, making a total of 39 seven-minute episodes. Pictures from the first six episodes can be seen on G4's website. The Canadian channel Razer aired the show in syndication as did the Citytv stations, The Comedy Network and OLN throughout Canada.CityTV.com The show was also broadcast on MTV in Europe and Latin America and on Animax in South Africa. It was also shown on Paramount Comedy 1 in the UK from May 11, 2007 for a short time, with occasional reruns afterward with the channel, now branded as Comedy Central UK. In Asia, the series airs on Comedy Central and FX. A second season began development, but had to be scrapped due to the television series currently off the air and budget problems. Possible Feature film In 2014, after the episode "Dream Job" was released, Mondo Media announced plans to produce a feature film based on the series. The film is apparently in pre-production, but as of 2019, no other information came forward, leading the fans to think that the film is scrapped. In 2016, Kenn Navarro tweeted that he was unaware of work being done on the film, but that his team were "in talk to do more shorts". Later, when a fan asked Kenn Navarro about the film, he replied: ""a treatment that I and the writers did was all the work (that I know of) for the movie" New episodes In December 2016, Mondo Media released five all-new episodes for purchase online. The episodes were bundled as a set named "Happy Tree Friends: Still Alive" and came with some additional bonus material such as background designs, animated storyboards, the animation process and a writer's session video. Upon purchase, the buyer was allowed to download the DRM free video files to their own computer. In January 2017 Kenn Navarro tweeted "As I understand, sales were ok but fell below what was expected." Fall Out Boy music video In 2007, the Fall Out Boy's music video for their song "The Carpal Tunnel of Love" was directed by Kenn Navarro. All of the characters die the same type of graphic, bloody deaths that are featured in the series. The Fall Out Boy band members also make a cameo as special Happy Tree Friends characters. Video game A video game titled Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm was released on June 25, 2008. It was developed by Stainless Games and Sega for Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360 and the PC. There was also an iOS game titled Happy Tree Friends: Deadeye Derby released in 2014. Spin-offs A spin-off series called Ka-Pow! aired on September 2008. It is about the adventures of four characters (The Mole, Flippy, Splendid and Buddhist Monkey). A total of six episodes have been produced. In 2014, Kenn Navarro created D_Void, a show similar to Happy Tree Friends. So far only 2 episodes have been produced. . Cast Awards References External links *[http://www.mondomedia.com/shows/happytreefriends/ Happy Tree Friends at Mondo Media] Category:Happy Tree Friends Category:American flash adult animated television series Category:Canadian flash animated television series Category:G4 television series Category:MTV television series Category:Animax shows Category:1999 web series debuts Category:2000s American adult animated television series Category:2000s American black comedy television series Category:2000s Canadian adult animated television series Category:2000s Canadian animated comedy television series Category:2006 American television series debuts Category:2006 Canadian television series debuts Category:2006 American television series endings Category:2006 Canadian television series endings Category:American animated television programs featuring anthropomorphic characters Category:Blood in fiction Category:American adult animated web series Category:YouTube series Category:Animal cruelty in fiction Category:American adult animated television series Category:Black comedy Category:American flash animated television series Category:Animated television series about bears Category:Television series about deer and moose Category:Animated television series about rabbits and hares Category:Television series about raccoons Category:Animated television series about squirrels